One area
that Matrox has down cold is drivers. They
continually impress us with a robust feature set and
supreme stability. This experience with a
Matrox product was no different. Here is a
look at the environment that is the G450.

G450
Driver/Info Tab

Power
Desk Feature Tab

Display
Adjust Tab

Dual
Head

DVDMAX

Color
Adjust

There is
plenty to play with on the G450 and control freaks
should enjoy all of the various tools for desktop
and general display image quality. The card
installed with out a fuss and we were moving on to
optimizing our display setting with just a few mouse
clicks.

The new
Dual Head Features of the G450 also add a new
dimension to the card. The previous family of
G400 product also had many of these feature but this
time around, Matrox brought them all on to one chip
in an effort to provide simplicity of design and
more importantly, low cost.

All
that you need for Multi-Monitor and TV-Out
Productivity and Fun
Click for full view

The cable on the left
allows you to convert the VGA connector to Composite
or S-Video interfaces. This simple solution
will provide for simultaneous viewing of a Game, DVD
or other applications running on the TV and a
separate and fully functional desktop on a
CRT. There are lots of other combinations to
choose from with Dual Head. Here are a few...

Dual
Head DVDMax

Dual
Head Multi-Display

Dual
Head TV-Out

Dual Head Zoom

As you
can see from the above illustrations, you can have
multiple desk top instances, TV and DVD Output, Zoom
Views of a region on your main desk top or one large
desk top area split across two screens, all on a
separate analog or digital display. The card
we tested was an analog output only model but Matrox
is also readying a G450 DVI which will have one VGA
Connector and one DVI.

We
decided to have a little fun and try out the DVDMax
and Dual Head Zoom features. Here are the
incriminating photos. Click for full
viewing fun.

In the
shot on the left on the Sony monitor, we have Jimmy
Vaughn doing his "thang" with a beat up
Fender Strat and soul-fulla-blues. On the
Toshiba monitor, we are running an instance of
3DMark's "Results Browser" in the
background while playing the DVD, that is full
screen on the Sony, in a window in the
foreground. On the bottom we also included a
shot of Matrox's DVD Player that uses a "Cinemaster"
playback decoder in a neat minimalistic
design. We'll have to get rid of the DVDs in
the HotHardware Lab. Having this much
entertainment so readily available while working,
could prove counter-productive.

In the
shot on the right, we have Paint Shop Pro running on
the Toshiba screen and a zoomed view of the region,
of the screen shot with the flaming trash cans, in
the Sony tube. Talk about "pixel
perfect" touch up... We could get spoiled
by this. There is but one draw back here, that
being sheer physics. Put two CRTs on your desk
and there is not much room left for anything
else. Two analog flat panels would be the way
to go with dual digital displays being
nirvana. However, neither the G450 or any
incarnation of a GeForce2 MX that we have seen to
date, have the ability to connect dual DVI Flat
Panels.

This
brings us to a comparison we are compelled to draw,
that being between the Millenium G450 and the
GeForce2 MX. Both cards are targeted at
value/business markets. Both cards also have
dual simultaneous and independent output
capabilities. As it stands today and having
experiences with both of these cards, we would have
to tip our hat to Matrox for their "Dual
Head" features versus nVidia's "Twin
View". The Matrox solution from both a
hardware and software standpoint is more elegant,
full featured and functional.

We've
seen the features and quality side of things
here. Now, let's look at performance.